Kavanaugh and his sexual assault allegations

The US did not prepare for threats to the election to the extent it should have. The presumption was that these threats would only be external which makes no sense at all. There are considerable efforts to distort the election result and the extent to the plans obviously are not fully known. The fact that the right wing may be proud of Kavanaugh and all he stands for is also a problem.

I think we should have learned from 2016 not to predict.

Yes, the likelihood is there but I think certainty is not near into the 80% range.

Sean -- do you think concerns about due process are playing a role in this bounce at all? I have argued in this thread that this bounce was a very real risk. I am curious to hear your thoughts on how due process fits into this.

ETA - Senator Heitkamp is a Democrat facing a strong Republican challenger, this Guardian article seems to be implying that she may lose her seat over her vote:

“This isn’t a political decision. If this were a political decision for me I certainly would be deciding this the other way,” Heitkamp said in an emotional interview with WDAY News. She is facing a strong Republican challenge, but said: “I can’t get up in the morning and look at the life experience that I’ve had and say yes to Judge Kavanaugh.”

Only as cover to do what they want and in the case of voters support what they want. Kavanaugh's behavior was partisan and combative and a woman who behaved as he did would be accused of being hysterical. He does not have the temperment required for a supreme court judge.

There are still votes on the fence but sooner or later the Democrats will take power and they could impeach him.

I think that Susan Collins is going to vote yes to approve Kavanaugh. I think that she is being blackmailed by the Republicans.

The state of Maine has two contracts that they cannot lose. One of them is a steel contract , And I don't know offhand what the second contract is . I believe that she was told that either she votes yes or she will lose two important contracts for her state if she votes against the Republican Party.

I Believe that if she wasn't under so much internal pressure and blackmailed that she would vote no.

Sorry in hindsight I wasn't very clear. I think the Republicans are incredibly partisan. Trump has a lot of support but the rest of the party surrendered to him. They will quite literally accept anything for power. That's the free market end. They don't care about social stuff. They have money. If they want abortions they will get them. Then there are the social conservatives. They will pretend to believe Kavanaugh, or forgive his youthful behavior, because they wan't Roe vs Wade overturned.

Since Trump's win the Republicans have taken the gloves off. Truth is meaningless. They create reality.

I could not find articles I wrote about how truly the trump win was disaster for the democratics in the US. The lost president, house, senate, got wipeouted in state house too. Thats the visible wreckage, but I stressed the real lose was not the changed new election. Supreme Court makeup. Trump in 2 years will get 2 conservative judges.

Plus if the repubilcation can hold house and critically the senate in 2018 can a third through.

both Clinton picks, I wish them long live but if Rep hold you never know what will happen.

The above was a warm up to I will say below.

As long as republican are united they can as they please. The biggest problem to the Repuilibacn agenda are not democratics as they politically useless, this may change in 2018 elections. No it repubilican unity.

The 2 jugdes that will get before the election will really make court really conservative, this will a huge huge impact for the next 20 years at least how the US develops socially, politcally, and economically.

I agree with someone up thread. This is an important moment culturally, and a travesty for the US judiciary, but I am increasingly weary of the blow-by-blow recounting by Cdn media. It would be nice if we could at least pretend to be a sovereign country with our own domestic issues.

Papers print what people want to read. We are sitting next to a behemoth with a radical president who is disrupting world politics to the extreme that they aren't invited to a save the WTO meeting. The me too movement crosses the border and so does this.

We are North Americans as much as we are Canadians. Americans may not realize it but so are they. It's more apparent to us because we are a much smaller population which is distributed along the US border. Even so we are America's largest export market.

Look at the attention this story has gotten here. The right in the US emboldens the right here in Canada.

Several polls show that the Kavanaugh story is giving the GOP a bounce. One poll where the Dems were up 11 now shows them up only 2.

Seems nothing gets US men more excited than an attack on women -- maybe hatred for women is even more popular than racism. Who knew?

This is such an absurd interpretation I don't even know how to begin challenging it.

I could talk about how a 9 point shift in the polls would require both men and women to change their intended vote. If it was a clear cut case of "do you hate women?" then every vote of a switching man would be countered by two (or ten) women switching the other way. It's not even close to a black and white referendum on women however much you might claim it is.

Or I could talk about how you have no way to know if those changing their vote actually believe Ford in whole or in part. I've seen some people who believe everything she's said, including being scared of flying, need 2 exits from a house, never coached a polygraph, etc. I've seen some people who don't believe everything but believe the basic assault accusation. I've seen people who believe she was assaulted but is mistaken about the assaulter being Kavanaugh (citing Ford's friend who doesn't remember ever being at a party with Kavanaugh while also acknowledging Ford's genuine testimony). And I've seen people who think everything she's said is a lie. To support your thesis that an increase in GOP support means men hate women would require everyone to believe Ford at least about the assault, which is a ridiculous perspective.

Or I could talk about how you have no way to know if those changing their vote acknowledge they don't know who the victim is, and so they are defaulting to the legal standard of innocent until proven guilty.

So anyway, I'll just say this:

The bounce in GOP support is not from people - men or women - who believe Ford but hate women. The issue here is not that some people believe Kavanaugh is a sexual abuser and support him anyway. The issue is that some people don't believe the accusations in the first placeand think Kavanaugh and his family are the victims here. As an aside, as far as I'm concerned even in a case where he is innocent, I think it's despicable that Kavanaugh is using his young daughters as a prop against these allegations. Kids don't need to be involved in this sort of thing. It shouldn't affect them. They shouldn't even know about it. Anyway, back to the point...

It is not helpful to say that Kavanaugh supporters hate women. Most Kavanaugh supporters would reject him completely if they believed the allegations. It would be much more helpful to address why people don't believe the accusations. The needle here is going to move in both direction and magnitude to the degree that people believe or disbelieve the allegations. For those who aren't feminists or MRAs (ie. most people), it has nothing to do with people's opinion of women or men in general and framing it that way is bad for your cause which is why the Left is under seige today.

And although neither of the following should need to be said:

1. Not believing one woman is not even remotely the same as hating all women, and claiming such is very unhelpful (in other words, will alienate more people than it will persuade).

2. I believe Ford

Based on past experience, this is probably an unwelcome opinion, since I'm pushing back against your favourite pasttime of demonizing the other side, so I'm not going to comment on this topic again. I just want it on record that I still believe your strategy of constantly attacking groups of people as hateful and ignoring any exculpating explanations is a bad one that harms your cause both because it is directly alienating and because it prevents you from addressing the real causes of these disagreements.

I agree that you have a point, Cody, but I think you are erroneously conflating how someone might go about trying to persuade a Trump supporter that they are mistaken with how we carry on discussions here on babble. This is a self selected group of left oriented people looking for political discussion. I would not use the same voice here as I would, for instance, in talking to my 2 sisters who have lived in the U.S. for several decades, and have become Fox News viewers and Trump supporters.

And just by the way, my interactions with those sisters demonstrate pretty conclusively to me that there is no hope of persuading them to change their opinions. There is a tiny but non-zero chance that one or both of them may someday change their mind, but it will never be because some lefty demonstrated to them the error in their thinking.

I agree with someone up thread. This is an important moment culturally, and a travesty for the US judiciary, but I am increasingly weary of the blow-by-blow recounting by Cdn media. It would be nice if we could at least pretend to be a sovereign country with our own domestic issues.

I am at a loss of words how Pookie can think that sexual assault and access to abortions is solely an American issue that is none of our concern.

The entire future of American democracy is at stake in this appointment and that affects the lives of Canadians as well.

The Democrats want to impeach Trump if they take control of both houses, but that cannot happen with Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court. Even though he was on the Bill Clinton impeachment Ken Starr team and wanted Bill Clinton impeached, Kavanaugh believes that Trump should have even greater powers as the POTUS, and should be immune to any judicial inquiry regarding his fitness to serve or any decisions he makes.

can you imagine Donald Trump with more executive power than he currently has now? It makes me wonder if this is why the GOP was in a frantic hurry to get Kavanaugh pushed through the hoops as quickly as they could before the November election.

a Donald Trump who bitterly hates Canada getting even stronger executive powers is somehow not any of our business.

Several polls show that the Kavanaugh story is giving the GOP a bounce. One poll where the Dems were up 11 now shows them up only 2.

Seems nothing gets US men more excited than an attack on women -- maybe hatred for women is even more popular than racism. Who knew?

This is such an absurd interpretation I don't even know how to begin challenging it.

I could talk about how a 9 point shift in the polls would require both men and women to change their intended vote. If it was a clear cut case of "do you hate women?" then every vote of a switching man would be countered by two (or ten) women switching the other way. It's not even close to a black and white referendum on women however much you might claim it is.

Or I could talk about how you have no way to know if those changing their vote actually believe Ford in whole or in part. I've seen some people who believe everything she's said, including being scared of flying, need 2 exits from a house, never coached a polygraph, etc. I've seen some people who don't believe everything but believe the basic assault accusation. I've seen people who believe she was assaulted but is mistaken about the assaulter being Kavanaugh (citing Ford's friend who doesn't remember ever being at a party with Kavanaugh while also acknowledging Ford's genuine testimony). And I've seen people who think everything she's said is a lie. To support your thesis that an increase in GOP support means men hate women would require everyone to believe Ford at least about the assault, which is a ridiculous perspective.

Or I could talk about how you have no way to know if those changing their vote acknowledge they don't know who the victim is, and so they are defaulting to the legal standard of innocent until proven guilty.

So anyway, I'll just say this:

The bounce in GOP support is not from people - men or women - who believe Ford but hate women. The issue here is not that some people believe Kavanaugh is a sexual abuser and support him anyway. The issue is that some people don't believe the accusations in the first placeand think Kavanaugh and his family are the victims here. As an aside, as far as I'm concerned even in a case where he is innocent, I think it's despicable that Kavanaugh is using his young daughters as a prop against these allegations. Kids don't need to be involved in this sort of thing. It shouldn't affect them. They shouldn't even know about it. Anyway, back to the point...

It is not helpful to say that Kavanaugh supporters hate women. Most Kavanaugh supporters would reject him completely if they believed the allegations. It would be much more helpful to address why people don't believe the accusations. The needle here is going to move in both direction and magnitude to the degree that people believe or disbelieve the allegations. For those who aren't feminists or MRAs (ie. most people), it has nothing to do with people's opinion of women or men in general and framing it that way is bad for your cause which is why the Left is under seige today.

And although neither of the following should need to be said:

1. Not believing one woman is not even remotely the same as hating all women, and claiming such is very unhelpful (in other words, will alienate more people than it will persuade).

2. I believe Ford

Based on past experience, this is probably an unwelcome opinion, since I'm pushing back against your favourite pasttime of demonizing the other side, so I'm not going to comment on this topic again. I just want it on record that I still believe your strategy of constantly attacking groups of people as hateful and ignoring any exculpating explanations is a bad one that harms your cause both because it is directly alienating and because it prevents you from addressing the real causes of these disagreements.

You clearly do not understand what misogyny is and how it manifests itself in so many ways.

i am so happy that you are not going to comment anymore on this thread because what you wrote is misogynistic garbage.

To a few people noting polls that show movement toward the Democrats: I hope you are right. I will look at the aggregator polls to see where this is going. It was discouraging to see people accept this man as judge.

"Our panelists: Paul Jay, Dharna Noor and Dana Vickers Shelley, Exec Dir of the Maryland ACLU and host Marc Steiner discuss the significance of the nomination, why the Democrats didn't pursue a criminal investigation for perjury, the consequences for women's rights and whether a fight should be waged to impeach Kavenaugh once he is confirmed."

"Two senators, a Democrat and a pro-choice woman, put a prevaricating misogynist who supports torture and mass surveillance, on the court for the next 40 years or until his liver gives out. We've come a long way baby."

This is a very sketchy and highly dubious prediction, but if true it can be a way to uplift our spirits a bit. Just saying!

You can read it and dismiss it outright, I don't care. For me personally, I don't necessarily believe it, but it has offered me some hope and comfort for the future and praying that it is true.

There was a clairvoyant named Baba Vanga who was born in Bulgaria a century ago. When she was very young, she was struck by lightening which permanent blinded her. It also left her with very strong supernatural powers. It gave her the ability to see long into the future with deep clarity.

She predicted that the 44th POTUS would be a black man and that he would be the last president of the United States.

She predicted that Donald Trump would not finish out his first term in office. She predicted that he would face impeachment.

I agree that you have a point, Cody, but I think you are erroneously conflating how someone might go about trying to persuade a Trump supporter that they are mistaken with how we carry on discussions here on babble. This is a self selected group of left oriented people looking for political discussion. I would not use the same voice here as I would, for instance, in talking to my 2 sisters who have lived in the U.S. for several decades, and have become Fox News viewers and Trump supporters.

And just by the way, my interactions with those sisters demonstrate pretty conclusively to me that there is no hope of persuading them to change their opinions. There is a tiny but non-zero chance that one or both of them may someday change their mind, but it will never be because some lefty demonstrated to them the error in their thinking.

"...Liberal and other Democrats want you to see the Kavanaugh nomination as an argument for voting and, of course, voting Democrat. Okay, but think of it also as and/or instead as the latest outrage that demonstrated the basic underlying illegitimacy of the US state and its thoroughly rotten class-rule character. The US state's institutions, processes, structures, founding documents, legal system, and (so much) more are wretched and oligarchic to the core. It's political and underlying economic and social processes are corrupt, un- and even anti-democratic at heart.

It was good to see people occupying parts of the US Capitol yesterday in response to the authoritarian and sexist absurdity of the Kavanaugh nomination process. Sure, it sometimes looks goofy, but our only hope starts with mass and long-term rebellion and the collapse of absurd and hierarchical structures like the US capitalist and imperial state. Consent to unjust power and undeserved authority must be actively, militantly and permanently withdrawn.

It is important to rebel. It's only the first step, but you haven't lived until you've rebelled alongside others, the more and more militantly the better - along with a coherent set of demands and a vision of alternative programs, institutions and an alternative socieity..."

There's been a lot of talk about an energized Republican base but were they asked how they intended to vote? Republican women have been very vocal in their support of Kavanaugh but perhaps those against him just aren't speaking up. I would also imagine there is a moderate middle that will be energized to vote.

Several polls show that the Kavanaugh story is giving the GOP a bounce. One poll where the Dems were up 11 now shows them up only 2.

Seems nothing gets US men more excited than an attack on women -- maybe hatred for women is even more popular than racism. Who knew?

we women know and have been trying to tell our alleged allies for decades at least but it falls on deaf ears because Male privilege is more important.

The difference between the Kavanaugh spectacle and the Trudeau groping allegation, if one believes the MeToo Movement: believes that the women are truthful, could be that Kavanaugh was not precient enough to have his lawyers commit his complainant to a confidentiality agreement by paying her off.

"In an interview to CNN's Christiane Amanpour on Tuesday, the former presidential nominee rejected parallels between allegations of sexual misconduct against her husband and the ones that have been leveled against President Donald Trump, and those that marred the confirmation process of Justice Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.

Clinton's words did not go down well with Juanita Broaddrick, one of Bill Clinton's most famous accusers. In 1999, she alleged in an interview with Dateline NBC that Clinton raped her in 1978 when he was serving as the AG of Arkansas..."

Senate Democrats have agreed to a Republican plan to fast-track the approval of 15 of President Trump’s nominees to lifetime appointments on federal courts. The agreement, made in a closed-door meeting late Thursday between Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Republican leader Mitch McConnell, will allow vulnerable senate Democrats to return to their home states to campaign for November’s midterm elections. Critics say Democrats could have fought the nominations and forced 30 hours of debate on each candidate.

Well, I think you have to look at Kavanaugh’s confirmation as part of this long story of the Bush administration, how they’ve been treated in the last decade. And as you mentioned, Obama refused to prosecute or go after the members of the Bush administration for their crimes having to do with torture, detainee policies, warrantless wiretapping. And because he refused to do that, because his administration refused to do that, it allowed these members of the administration, the Bush administration to kind of slowly reintegrate themselves back into society, and the government, and the- I guess you kind of call it the discourse.

Kavanaugh, who was already a judge, who had become a judge in 2006 in the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, while he was with the Bush administration as associate counsel and later as staff secretary, was- at least there’s a lot, there are a lot of indications that he was involved with the detainee policies, the torture policies, and warrantless wiretapping, as evidenced by some email titles that have been released by the National Archives. The full emails and all the documents will be released at the end of October. But the names of some of these emails indicate that Kavanaugh was involved with creating these policies that were in direct violation of both international and U.S. law. And if if the Bush administration and members of the Bush administration had been prosecuted by Obama and his administration, I think we would have seen a situation where someone like Kavanaugh, who again was involved with all of these policies, would have been considered maybe politically too toxic to appoint to the Supreme Court. And this is, of course, setting aside everything else about him that that raises questions, including his drinking and his allegations of sexual assault.

Of course, these are the Democrats, so all they could do was grasp at straws by the time Kavanaugh was nominated.

There never was any chance of stopping him. Trump made his pick and he had the numbers to get his choice approved. It is simply naieve to assume that anything could have stopped this nomination, or that an Administration this openly misogynistic would have even blinked at the accusations that came out. Unfortunately, the US is stuck with him for a while, considering that the Democrats are about to lose ground in the Senate in a few weeks. Of course, with Democrats like Joe Manchin, who voted for him, who needs the Republicans anyways?

There never was any chance of stopping him. Trump made his pick and he had the numbers to get his choice approved. It is simply naieve to assume that anything could have stopped this nomination, or that an Administration this openly misogynistic would have even blinked at the accusations that came out. Unfortunately, the US is stuck with him for a while, considering that the Democrats are about to lose ground in the Senate in a few weeks. Of course, with Democrats like Joe Manchin, who voted for him, who needs the Republicans anyways?

Obama could have stopped it but chose not to. He is the "good cop" side of neoliberalism.

There never was any chance of stopping him. Trump made his pick and he had the numbers to get his choice approved. It is simply naieve to assume that anything could have stopped this nomination, or that an Administration this openly misogynistic would have even blinked at the accusations that came out. Unfortunately, the US is stuck with him for a while, considering that the Democrats are about to lose ground in the Senate in a few weeks. Of course, with Democrats like Joe Manchin, who voted for him, who needs the Republicans anyways?

Obama could have stopped it but chose not to. He is the "good cop" side of neoliberalism.

Please explain as this does not make sense. Obama did not have Senate control since 2014 and could not get his own nominee in.

Scalia died in early 2016. Obama had no vacancy that was not filled before then and the GOP obstructed his nomination after that. The Republicans then brought in Gorsuch to replace Scalia as the bench had been kept open by their refusal to consider an Obama appointee. This year another retired and we got this last one.

There never was any chance of stopping him. Trump made his pick and he had the numbers to get his choice approved. It is simply naieve to assume that anything could have stopped this nomination, or that an Administration this openly misogynistic would have even blinked at the accusations that came out. Unfortunately, the US is stuck with him for a while, considering that the Democrats are about to lose ground in the Senate in a few weeks. Of course, with Democrats like Joe Manchin, who voted for him, who needs the Republicans anyways?

Obama could have stopped it but chose not to. He is the "good cop" side of neoliberalism.

Please explain as this does not make sense. Obama did not have Senate control since 2014 and could not get his own nominee in.

Scalia died in early 2016. Obama had no vacancy that was not filled before then and the GOP obstructed his nomination after that. The Republicans then brought in Gorsuch to replace Scalia as the bench had been kept open by their refusal to consider an Obama appointee. This year another retired and we got this last one.

Obama should have investigated and prosecuted Bush and Wall Street fat cats. Had he done so the Conservatives wouldn't be so cocky now. Almost makes me suspect they are playing good cop bad cop. The Conservatives have never hesitated to go after the Democrats as they did the Clintons. Maybe it isn't that complicated. Maybe it is just the political class protecting its power to disregard the law when it suits them.

Nope. Under Obama the Democrats had control. They didn't go after Bush for his crimes, they didn't go after Wall Street for their crimes. Because they failed to go after Bush and the fat cats Trump has no reason to hold back. Why should he? The Democrats won't do anything even if they gain power.

You wrote, "Obama should have investigated and prosecuted Bush and Wall Street fat cats. Had he done so the Conservatives wouldn't be so cocky now. Almost makes me suspect they are playing good cop bad cop. The Conservatives have never hesitated to go after the Democrats as they did the Clintons. Maybe it isn't that complicated. Maybe it is just the political class protecting its power to disregard the law when it suits them. "

The capital "C" Conservatives are in Canada. The Republicans are in the States.

You wrote, "Obama should have investigated and prosecuted Bush and Wall Street fat cats. Had he done so the Conservatives wouldn't be so cocky now. Almost makes me suspect they are playing good cop bad cop. The Conservatives have never hesitated to go after the Democrats as they did the Clintons. Maybe it isn't that complicated. Maybe it is just the political class protecting its power to disregard the law when it suits them. "

The capital "C" Conservatives are in Canada. The Republicans are in the States.

Yes, I see now, I should have said Republicans or conservatives. I guess I am just used to using caps.

I agree with someone up thread. This is an important moment culturally, and a travesty for the US judiciary, but I am increasingly weary of the blow-by-blow recounting by Cdn media. It would be nice if we could at least pretend to be a sovereign country with our own domestic issues.

I agree with someone up thread. This is an important moment culturally, and a travesty for the US judiciary, but I am increasingly weary of the blow-by-blow recounting by Cdn media. It would be nice if we could at least pretend to be a sovereign country with our own domestic issues.

THIS ^^^^.

Me to. I rarely turn on the CBC because when I do like this morning at 9:30 on a Sunday morning I found an interview with an American talking about womens issues in the US. I swore and turned it off.